


Forth on the godly sea

by cyanocorax



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2013-03-09
Packaged: 2017-12-04 17:54:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyanocorax/pseuds/cyanocorax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“It must’ve been a grand thing,” Robert whispered on one occasion. “Durran’s war.”<br/>“I doubt it,” Stannis replied. He’d been at his histories again. “Men die in wars.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forth on the godly sea

Ever since he could remember, there was an old frayed tapestry hanging on the far wall of the bedchamber Robert Baratheon shared with his younger brother. It was as tall as his lord father, taller even, stretched from one end of the room to the other, and depicted an enormous hunt taking place across bright green fields. Stannis characteristically loathed it, was always asking what the point of it was, all those silly men on their silly horses wasting their time chasing a silly boar who probably just wanted to be left alone in the first place. But Robert thought it glorious. It was the first thing he saw in the morning, that fantastic blur of emerald and cloth of gold. It was the stuff of songs and legend. It was all he desired.

These were the dark grey months of winter, when the wind came howling across Shipbreaker Bay every night and the days were sapped of color. Often there was not much to do save peer out the narrow windows of Storm’s End upon the barren fields to the west while Maester Cressen droned on and on about various aspects of nonsense. Robert suspected that deep down, for all his diligence, Stannis hated sums as much as he did. “ _This_ is what’s pointless,” he barked, angry at having been told off yet again for not paying attention.

“You only say that,” Stannis replied, clipped and cool and proper, “because I’m better at it than you are.”

“A lord must know how much grain he has harvested each autumn,” Cressen added, all smiles and aggravating patience. “He must be able to collect his tax, count his—”

“Stannis can take care of all that, when I’m lord. Isn’t that right, Stannis?”

The maester shook his head, folded his hands. “Your brother might not always be here for you, Robert.”

This was a queer notion, if Robert had ever heard one. Stannis was as certain as rain on the roof and storms at the walls and winter in the air. He was every kick under the dinner table and every bump in their bed at night, every whine, every irritant, every scowl. That he might one day leave was an impossibility not worthy of contemplation.

Robert threw his head back to laugh, and shoved his elbow to his brother’s ribs, and put the thought away.

 

 

“Stannis, look up from that stupid book and _do_ something; I’m _bored_.”

“You’re always bored.”

“Well, you’re always boring.” 

It had begun to drizzle again, a slow, wet haze of mist that made the air inside the castle thick and uncomfortable. Robert itched with inactivity, but every motion he attempted to make was rewarded with either a slap or a scowl, be it rapping his knuckles on the tabletop or flicking ink into his brother’s face. “Look,” he drawled, “now you’re even prettier.”

“Sometimes I can’t believe you’re eldest.”

“S’ that so? Let’s go down to the yard and I’ll prove it.”

Another scowl, though less effective, being dotted with specks of black at either corner. “In this weather?”

“Seven hells. You’ve always got some excuse.”

“There are sacks of straw in the armory if you want something to hit.”

“Oh, that’s no fun. Sacks of straw don’t make little weepy noises when you wallop them.”

Stannis didn’t reply to that, only ground his teeth and slammed the book shut with a loud and dusty ‘thump’ before getting to his feet and making a beeline for the door. Robert followed, smiling, catching up with ease. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, leaning down a little so he could peer into his brother’s eyes. “Cook’s got tarts in the oven. We could go make her give us some. Or we could—Stannis, I said I was sorry.”

They stopped at a turn in the corridor. Stannis narrowed his eyes and shrugged. “Yes,” he grumbled. “You always do.”

There was a beat where neither of them spoke, and only the sound of the rain and their breath occupied the space between them. Then Stannis seemed to let out a great deal of air and said, “What sort of tart?” and things were alright again. 

That was often how it went, with them. 

 

 

Robert still remembered their first trip to King’s Landing, some years ago. It had been summer then, and the heat was near unbearable—but not in the throne room, where all was shadow and marble and steel. He and Stannis had walked together between the stares of dozens of black, empty sockets, footsteps ringing, necks stiff. They knew the stories, even then. _Harren the Black thought he was safe behind his great walls of stone, but the rock melted like ice when the dragons came and he and his sons burned alive, screaming…_

“It looks like they want to eat us,” Stannis had whispered, and Robert had agreed. There was something hungry in the bones, full of longing and the memory of flesh and fire. But he needed to be brave. After all, the king was watching. 

_It’s only their skulls._

“I won’t let them,” he had said, and took his brother’s hand.

 

 

“We are Baratheons, of Storm’s End,” Lord Steffon told them in splendid, ringing tones on many a dark night, as they crouched at his knee before the roaring fire. “We are born to be as strong as the cliffs below and the walls without.” And then he would lean down, lower his voice, say, “Boys, have I ever told you the story of how this castle was built?” 

Stannis always rolled his eyes a little and said, “Time and time again,” but Lord Steffon ignored him, which Robert thought the sensible thing to do. If it wasn’t written in a book, Stannis generally found no time for it. But Robert knew the truth, that a good tale always got better with each telling. It didn’t matter, if Durran always won and Elenei always loved him and the castle always got built. It was the feel of the thing: the cycle, the rhythm, the sound of his father’s voice mingled with the distant hiss of the sea. Easy as breathing, as fighting, as laughter. 

 

 

There were days when he questioned if the sky had ever been blue or if he’d only imagined it—though if he shut his eyes and thought hard enough, he could still picture what the sea looked like in high summer, feel the sand between his toes. 

But these were the dark grey months of winter, when snows came down from the north and each coming night seemed to threaten to stay for good. So they slept side by side in the same bed, curled beneath the same furs, breath mingling, eyes flung open. The screaming wind often made sleep come slowly, their father’s stories even more so. 

“It must’ve been a grand thing,” Robert whispered on one occasion. “Durran’s war.”

“I doubt it,” Stannis replied. He’d been at his histories again. “Men die in wars.”

_Not in songs, though. Not for true._

“But think about it—Durran, with his great big hammer and his magic bricks, cursing the gods as he fought for love and vengeance.” Robert knew little of either, to be sure, but they must have been worth having, if Durran had been willing to spend years and years building keep after keep to protect them. 

Stannis yawned, and shivered, and shrugged. “Men raise castles. Many men. Hundreds and hundreds. Durran and Elenei are stories.” But he did not sound so sure of it. Not in that moment. Not with the cliffs shuddering against the gale and the night so close against them. There must’ve been spells in the walls, Robert thought. Elsewise Storm’s End would have tumbled into the sea eons ago.

He lay still for some time, listening to the sound of his brother’s heart and breath, certain he had gone to sleep. But there was a flutter of movement all of a sudden as Stannis opened his eyes, and rolled a little closer. “Do you think he had the right of it?” he asked, so softly Robert almost missed the words.

“Who? Durran? ‘course he did. He was saving his lady. He was keeping her from harm.” 

“But her parents. Her family.”

“Well, our mother left her family when she came here to marry our father,” Robert said, feeling incredibly good about himself for managing to be smarter than Stannis for once.

“She still sees them, though. Our uncles visit and sometimes she goes to Greenstone.” The candlelight made Stannis’s eyes appear golden at the edges, large and shining, and filled with doubt. “The gods only wanted back what they thought was theirs, was all. Durran didn’t have to… He didn’t have to be so cruel about it.”

Robert laughed and laughed at this. “Stannis, you say the most ridiculous things, I can’t ever tell if you’re japing.” 

But his brother only frowned. “Don’t you think mother and father would be angry, if one of us ever went off without them knowing?” He licked his lips and got even quieter, said, “It’s almost like Elenei was dead, for them. Maybe she thought this castle was her home but the sea gods must’ve thought it was her tomb…” 

And then nothing was funny anymore, and Robert found himself shuddering for no good reason, seeing as it was good and warm beneath the furs by then, with Stannis pressed so close. 

_Your brother might not always be here for you, Robert._

“Say,” he snapped, “You’re not thinking of going anywhere, are you? Found some lord you’d like to wed and bed?” 

At first Robert thought Stannis might’ve gotten angry at that, but instead he only sighed, and turned very slowly to stare up at the ceiling, his jaw working back and forth in the way that it sometimes did.

“Don’t be silly,” he mumbled, and shut his eyes.

The tallow candle soon gave off one last sputter and was out, turning the room fully dark and endless. Robert stayed awake for a while yet, however, pondering. Stannis really did say the most ridiculous things, but sometimes they lingered, and festered, and grew into full-fledged thoughts in the back of Robert’s head. 

_A home or a tomb._

When he did sleep at long last, he dreamed he held an iron hammer in one hand, and all the power of wind and sea in the other, and he was angry, so terribly angry. There was nothing of love in him, not in that moment, only vengeance. Only fury. His eyes were filled with the faces old, dead dragons and his heart was set to burst asunder. He needed to kill them. He needed to kill them all. He thought he could hear his brother shouting, and in the distance, a woman’s scream, high and desperate and full of pain. 

He woke thrashing, in the middle of that night, furs tangled about his shoulders. Even then, it took some time for him to remember where he was. _Storm’s End_ , he thought to himself, _I’m in Storm’s End. Nothing can harm me here._

Someone was nudging him softly, a warm knee pressing into his side. “You were shouting,” Stannis mumbled, his voice still thick with sleep.

“No I wasn’t,” Robert replied. “Go back to bed.” He tried to move the furs back to where they had lain before, covering the both of them, before grasping through the darkness with an outstretched palm. Reaching, and reaching, and reaching, until his fingers met with the warmth of his brother’s back.

Stannis flinched a little, but he didn’t quite move away— _not yet, not yet, not for years_ — and Robert thought that sufficient. He settled, and stilled, and breathed upon the nape of Stannis’s neck, felt the soft tick of his heart. When he closed his eyes once more, it was no longer to dream.

**Author's Note:**

> lol i really need to stop writing elaborate headcanons and calling them fic
> 
> but i was always intrigued by how robert goes to war for lyanna and stannis goes to war for robert - if not robert the man, then at least robert the brother. (certainly not robert the 'king'.) i suppose stannis can talk about duty to the elder, but i wonder if it wasn't duty tinged by love.
> 
> yeah yeah 'he wasn't my beloved brother' but that's many seasons and many slights down the line, so. shh.


End file.
